


you have been dying since the day you were born

by keatz



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Body Image, Character Study, Dermatillomania, Fjord Has 7 Wisdom, Gen, Introspection, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Harm, Sort Of, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2021-01-16 09:03:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21268490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keatz/pseuds/keatz
Summary: This isn't the first time he's ever noticed, but it's the first time he really thinks about it.Or: every day, Fjord unmakes himself.





	you have been dying since the day you were born

**Author's Note:**

> this contains depictions of implied self-harm (picking at skin, teeth, etc. as well as fjord's tusks) and suicidal thoughts (sort of?); it's nothing too graphic, but please proceed with care!

Fjord doesn't know why he thinks about it right now. His foot hurts a little but that's not new, but suddenly he's thinking about how it hurts and he can't go back to reading.

He marks his place in the book, one of Caleb's (terribly dull really, all incomprehensible theory and academic nonsense with any number of _ -ations _ he doesn’t get, but beggars certainly can't be choosers and Fjord isn't picky where he gets it from as long as he has magic again, as long as he has _ something_).

He moves the book a bit and looks at his other hand, the one that isn't holding the book, at the jagged thumbnail and the dry green flakes on it. 

It looks kind of nice actually, flecks of green on black on green, soft on sharp on soft. The side of his foot hurts a little, but that's okay if it looks nice. 

But, well - he looks down and he's made a neat little hole in his foot now, digging into hardened callus, and that doesn't look nearly as nice, and - he doesn't like that. 

This isn't the first time Fjord's caught himself picking at his skin (or nails or teeth or hair), but it's definitely the first time he's really thought about it. It's always been just a thing he does, has always done, but this is the first time he's ever properly thought about it. 

Not the tusks of course, even he's not dumb enough not to have thought about his tusks and how they make him feel. That whole thing was pretty straightforward, really, easy and painful - blood in his mouth and cuts on his lips but easier eyes on him, less disgust and more hunger, and that was - good. Good and easy. 

They're growing back in now, he can feel them (thinking about them always makes him extra aware of how they feel, heavy against his lips, tips poking out of his mouth), and Jester says they make him look dashing but Jester will say anything, really. He can't help but smile as he remembers _ (you look all cool and dashing now, Fjord, just like Oskar would!), _but then - he realises his tusks are jutting out, sharp and uncomfortable and bigger than ever as his mouth stretches grotesquely around them, and he thinks about how they feel and how they must look - and he stops smiling. Jester will say anything, really.

It's hard not to touch them now, but he doesn't. He tries not to think about his tusks, and he looks back at his foot. This is different from that, though, he decides. He doesn't hate his feet (or his nails or his teeth or his hair) - not much anyway - looking at his skin doesn't make him want to rip it off or scream or anything like that. Not much anyway. 

But he picks at them, all the time, whenever his hands aren't busy doing other things; his feet are uneven with calluses he's half scraped off, and the skin around his nails is ragged and torn. Scabs over old wounds are partially torn off, and there is a constellation of little red marks, crescent-shaped, nail-shaped, all over green.

He's seen them all of course, they're part of him, but he hasn't thought about them before. He wonders why he does it, and realises almost immediately, maybe that's why - they're part of him._ He's _ part of him, and what is _ he _if not the flesh (and the skin and nails and teeth and hair) that makes him? 

He is the things that make him, and if he can wear at those things little by little, pick at them until there is nothing left, then maybe there really will be nothing left. If he can strip away the layers over him, maybe he'll see there isn't a him behind those layers, maybe he'll unmake himself only to see there was nothing to unmake. If he scratches that callus on his foot hard enough then maybe he'll stop existing one day.

He laughs a little at that, just a sharp exhale really, careful to keep his mouth closed. Maybe if he scratches his foot hard enough he really will stop existing.

Maybe; or maybe it's Caleb's shitty book that's getting to him. Or maybe he's just going crazy. He laughs again, and draws his thumb back over his foot, scratching lightly at the rough skin. 

_ ...the term itself having been coined by the eminent arcanist and scholar Dresorimus Merthal _ _ in his pioneering AA 1263 treatise _ Arcane Magic and its Component Aspects: A Study on the Role of Somatic Gestures in Effective Spellcasting_ \- one that has now become ubiquitous in the field of arcane theory—_

Yeah, it's definitely Caleb's shitty book.

  


**Author's Note:**

> aaaaaa this is the first thing ive ever posted on here!!  
anyway i wrote this thing at 2am right before a test so idk what this is. but i hope u liked it?  
my cr tumblr is [@feyking](http://feyking.tumblr.com/) if u wanna talk about fjord or literally anything else!! 🐸


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